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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25531297">mangled guts pretending</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/greatcatsbys/pseuds/greatcatsbys'>greatcatsbys</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Chronic Illness, Found Families, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, M/M, decaying cities decaying bodies, geostigma era, sometimes family is just a bunch of hired assassins and their boss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:27:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,273</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25531297</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/greatcatsbys/pseuds/greatcatsbys</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Even his father got a better death than this, Masamune straight through the heart. It's quick, and painless, and more importantly, impactful. Rufus knows he will die in a hospital bed like so many others, skin withering from his bones, silent and entirely forgettable. Like so many others. </p><p>Rufus has never considered himself like others before.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rufus Shinra/Tseng</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>mangled guts pretending</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this takes place post FFVII, pre advent children. there are a few nods to the events of on the way to a smile, but for the most part it’s just me doing my own thing</p><p>content warnings for degenerative illness and mild body horror.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rufus goes to see Midgar often enough that it feels more like a ritual of self-harm. If he closes his eyes, he can hear the vibrancy of the city that was once his, was his for only a moment. </p><p>He opens his eyes, and the world is grey. Skeleton frames heave with rubble, smoke still, still gently rising from the circle of reactors. Highways crack like splintered veins, jagged and aching. Midgar was always meant to be the sacrificial lamb, a stop on the journey to a land of plenty. That was his father’s vision, never his. Rufus wanted the city to live forever. </p><p>Neither of them were right, in the end.</p><p>Rufus imagines the Shinra building still standing, imagines sitting in his suite and looking down at mako-tinged streetlights. If he wishes hard enough, he can feel Tseng laughing against his lips, as they kiss against the window that overlooks his city of steel.</p><p>The dull ache in his hand shakes him from his reverie; it’s not long since they found him in a basement, abducted and bleeding. He is foolish to come here alone, but the wreckage helps him think of the architecture for Edge, the smell of rust and mildew reminding him of what <em> must </em> be done.</p><p>On the wind, Rufus hears a voice.</p><p><em> Hear the planet you killed,</em> it says, a cold and brittle voice that reminds him of Sephiroth. It fills Rufus with a dread that chills his bones, makes him retreat slowly into his car, lock the doors tight and seize his pistol.</p><p>He exhales once, twice, slumps forward against the steering wheel. He flicks the headlights on, sees nothing but light glinting against metal. Rufus sighs at himself, foolish and paranoid, and picks up his PHS to return one of the many, many missed calls from his Turks.</p><p>Rufus thinks the voice an isolated incident, at the time.</p><p>—</p><p>The pain comes first.</p><p>Pain is something Rufus is used to, a stiff neck and shoulders a permanent fixture for someone who spends too much time craned over papers. His body has a dull ache to it, feels sore in his joints and his muscles and even his hair. </p><p>He puts it down to working late, being fucked too roughly, slowly getting older. If he sits and thinks about it, his body’s ached since Meteorfall. </p><p>As with most things, Tseng notices it before he does. It's late, and Rufus comes to bed in the half-light. Tseng stirs at the intrusion, smiles gently and reaches for where Rufus should be in the dark.</p><p>Tseng brushes a part of him, could be arm, could be torso, and he hears Rufus flinch, suck in a shuddering breath.</p><p>‘Did that hurt?’ Tseng says, incredulous. ‘I barely touched you.’</p><p>Rufus makes a disgruntled noise, is far too tired to discuss it.</p><p>‘I’m not made of glass.’</p><p>‘I’d break you if you were,’ Tseng smiles, kisses him goodnight.</p><p>—</p><p>It arrives on his hand like stigmata. His body aches with an overwhelming soreness, but touching the mark is curiously different. He expects it to feel agonising, like fire in his palms, but instead, he feels nothing. Complete numbness and weakness. It is far, far scarier than pain.</p><p>There’s only so long he can hide it for; his lover is well-trained in noticing hidden things. Rufus decides white gloves are in fashion this season, smiles around it with a coquettish <em> do you know how much these cost? </em> when people ask. At times like this, he really misses having a dog, largely for the company, but also for how people notice it and not him. </p><p>Mornings are the worst; sleep relieves no pain. For once, Rufus thanks the gods that Tseng is an early riser. It gives him time to groom himself, to panic about how long he can keep this up. His hair loses its vibrancy, his skin gains a grey pallor. He has products and dye for those, but nothing for the trembling in his throat.</p><p>Rufus briefly entertains the idea that his body is stronger than foreign cells, that his cytokines and sheer conviction can resist the infection. Illness is for the poor in the slums, for those huddling under tarpaulin in Edge. The Shinra name is bulletproof.</p><p>—</p><p>Again, Tseng knows before he does.</p><p>‘Geostigma,’ Rufus says plainly, and Tseng nods.</p><p>‘We’ll work something out,’ Tseng says, ever the pragmatist. ‘You have the best healthcare money can buy.’</p><p>Rufus smiles politely, does not tell Tseng of the sinking feeling in his stomach, the feeling that no money on Gaia will save him from this one.</p><p>‘Hold me,’ Rufus says, sharp as an order. Tseng does, does not let go until Rufus relieves him like a soldier on duty.</p><p>Afterwards, Tseng feels bile rising in his chest, rushes to the bathroom and hurls his guts out. There’s some humour in the fact that he can maim and kill without a second thought; but then, some things you can never train for.</p><p>He sighs at himself in the mirror, pulls his hair back loosely and splashes cold water on his face. He’s meeting with Tuesti and the others in ten, and is not about to show up looking as if his guts are mangled. He wipes his face with the sleeve of his jacket, hears the drip of the tap and his own shaking breath.</p><p>Tseng hears the door and smells cigarette smoke. If it’s Reno, he’ll tell him to <em> get out </em> because <em> nobody </em> sees him like this, especially not a man with the loosest mouth imaginable. Instead, it’s Rude, who stands behind Tseng wordlessly, catches his eyes in the mirror and immediately understands.</p><p>Rude shifts, places a hand silently on Tseng’s shoulder. Tseng pauses, before he slowly places his hand on Rude’s, and allows his face to crumple.</p><p>—</p><p>The first lesion on his face awakens something destructive in him.</p><p>He can hide the others with tailoring, with gloves; but this is irrevocable. Black stains his cheekbone, reaching for his left eye. He looks like he's been in a fist-fight with fucking Bahamut, which all things considered isn't a bad description of how he feels.</p><p>If he has to die, he should at least get to be young and beautiful. The universe owes him that much.</p><p>Even his father got a better death than this, Masamune straight through the heart. It's quick, and painless, and more importantly, impactful. Rufus knows he will die in a hospital bed like so many others, skin withering from his bones, silent and entirely forgettable. Like so many others. Rufus has never considered himself like <em> others </em> before.</p><p>He's twice the man his father was. There is no fucking <em> fairness </em> in <em> any </em> of this.</p><p>—</p><p>At night he hears the Lifestream, distorted and snarling in his head. He hears screaming, unintelligible aside from a few words, spiraling over and over.</p><p>
  <em> Hear the planet your father killed. The planet you killed. </em>
</p><p>Rufus always awakens with a dread, sweaty and nauseous. It doesn't count as a nightmare if it's true.</p><p>—</p><p>Technically, none of them owe Rufus Shinra anything. Midgar is over, Shinra is dead; but still, they stay, always his Turks. </p><p>Rufus knows he is no longer imposing, knows the first thing they see is the cane and the bandages and the slowness in his thoughts. Reading is difficult, and writing is harder. Studying the limits of his body is his new way of staying occupied, of keeping his mind from the inevitable. He meets with doctors in makeshift surgeries in Edge, speaks to pharmaceutical contacts out in Junon. What he lacks in medical literacy he makes up for in willpower.</p><p>His speech is still sharp, thanks in kind to them visiting him every day. Tseng reads him research papers in the evenings, and Rude delivers pain meds back to Healen, which Rufus knows are in short supply. He does not ask how Rude acquires them. </p><p>Illness has endeared him to Reno, astonishingly; he talks about everything and nothing and slips him cigarettes when Tseng isn’t looking. His honesty is refreshing, and Reno never skimps on the detail when it comes to life outside Healen, in the dirt and grime where lesions turn into festering wounds.</p><p>Rufus trusts him not to spare his feelings, which is more than can be said for the others.</p><p>‘Look at you,’ Reno says with something that sounds almost like pity. ‘You look like shit, boss.’</p><p>‘Your roots are showing,’ Rufus counters.</p><p>Reno positively growls.</p><p>‘Not taking that shit from a bottle blonde -’</p><p>‘Fuck you, Sinclair.’</p><p>It makes them both laugh, ribbing each other with an ease from a time gone by. </p><p>They indulge him far too much, Rufus thinks; but then, perhaps they always have. He thinks about the things he will miss; the crinkle of Elena’s cheeks after a bad joke, Rude’s stoic empathy, Reno’s brash honesty. He thinks of them as he costs a new monument in Edge, as a testament to those who survive. </p><p>—</p><p>Tseng knows death as an instantaneous shot to the forehead, or a knife in the back. This slow decline is new, but as with everything, he is quick to adapt. Their plush double bed at Healen gives way to medical equipment, monitors cold and beeping. Tseng sleeps in the chair at his bedside, has not thought to find a bed of his own. </p><p>Rufus has canes, wheelchairs, braces for his ankles. On good days, Rufus teases Tseng, threatens to bend him over and show him just what the cane is for. On bad days, he has Tseng take him by the waist and slowly lower him into the wheelchair, stares absently into the distance like it's nothing.</p><p>For the most part, his resolve is firm. Find the source of infection, rebuild the world with Tseng at his side. There are still days where Rufus sits in his bed and counts his lesions, feels numb to the touch but sick to the stomach.</p><p>Tseng still sprays him with cologne every morning, still kisses the crook of his neck and dresses him as best he can. His suit is replaced by loose robes, utilitarian and entirely fucking dull. Rufus scowls, asks if they can at least pin his mesh train to it.</p><p>‘Will that make you feel better?’ Tseng quips.</p><p>‘If I'm dying, Tseng, I'm going in fucking style.’</p><p>‘You’re <em> not -’ </em>Tseng says, inhales sharply. ‘Not <em> yet.</em>’</p><p>Rufus wants to hold Tseng by the shoulders, tell him of how his body is filled with a fatigue that threatens to overcome him. He wants to tell him how bodies adjust to a pain above pain, how every time a new symptom appears he thinks of adding a new line to his will. He wants to say all of these things, but knows somebody alive, somebody well, will never understand the way Rufus needs him to.</p><p>‘Of course not,’ is what Rufus finally does say, with a resigned ease. ‘Don’t worry.’</p><p>He’s always been able to lie like the best of them.</p><p>—</p><p>Reno and Rude throw themselves into field work with an intensity that Tseng knows is deliberate. The smell of decay grows stronger each morning.</p><p>Instead, it is Elena who helps the most, is delicate with her hands and fluent with the bandages. She never grimaces at the smell, and Tseng is quietly impressed. She’s learned stoicism well.</p><p>At lunch one day, Reno quips about care being <em> a woman’s job, </em>and Tseng has to forcibly pull her away to stop her from breaking his arm.</p><p>‘It’s <em> respect,’</em> she hisses, eyes feral, ‘not subservience. Learn the difference.’</p><p>Tseng later learns about her family in Five, her mother paralysed by falling shrapnel working in Six. She tells him about the final days of her life, her screams in pain, how Elena is equipped to handle slow, unsteady decline more readily than any of them.</p><p>Rufus likes her, Tseng can tell. He likes the way she makes his coffee, and the way it is still - <em> still </em> - refreshingly easy to get her to blush, or laugh, or scowl. He likes her honesty. She is a soft buffer for Tseng’s stern, unyielding poise. </p><p>One evening, it is late. Rufus is asleep, Tseng reading papers to him as he strokes Rufus’ hair. Elena hovers at the door, afraid of intruding on a peace so rare.</p><p>‘I know you’re there, Elena,’ Tseng says, does not look up. ‘Come in. It’s fine.’</p><p>She smiles, walks over to Rufus and places a hand against his forehead.</p><p>‘You’ve been here all day, sir,’ Elena says. ‘Want me to take over?’</p><p>‘I’m fine staying,’ Tseng says, does not look up.</p><p>‘Sir,’ Elena says quietly. ‘You don’t have to do everything by yourself.’</p><p>Tseng looks up at her, irritated, wants to snap at her for being naive, wants to tell her that she knows nothing of the independence he has to learn again. He remembers her mother, and softens.</p><p>‘You’re right,’ he says, and places the papers neatly at Rufus’ bedside. ‘Thank you.’</p><p>‘Just doing my job, sir,’ she replies, with a smile. ‘You should take some time for yourself.’</p><p>‘This is time for me,’ Tseng says, with a stiffness that betrays him. ‘I do <em> want </em> to be here.’</p><p>Elena smiles with a tiredness beyond her years.</p><p>‘Nobody wants to be here, like this,’ she says. ‘But you stay anyway. Because to leave is unthinkable.’</p><p>Tseng does not reply. Rufus does not stir.</p><p>—</p><p>It’s late in Healen, windows dark aside from a dull light in Rufus’ room. Papers are scattered on the floor, medical charts cascading from the shelves. Sweat soaks his bandages, as he writes with a quiet frenzy.</p><p>Rufus is close, he knows; notices something in the way the cells reproduce. Jenova cells, permeating through the body, akin to Hojo’s reports on Sephiroth. Rufus is no physician, but he surprises himself with his discipline, impressed with just how much he can learn when his life is on the line.</p><p>Tseng appears silently, in the way he does when Rufus does not wish to be disturbed.</p><p>‘You should rest,’ Tseng says, face half in shadow. </p><p>Rufus laughs at him, continues to study the text in his hands.</p><p>‘<em>Rufus</em>,’ Tseng says, not unkindly. ‘You’ll burn yourself out. You were sick four times yesterday.’</p><p>‘So?’ Rufus says belligerently. ‘I’m going for the record.’</p><p>Tseng glares at him from the doorway, and Rufus sighs, slows his writing.</p><p>‘I have to keep going,’ he says quietly. ‘I don’t know when I’ll feel this sharp again.’</p><p>‘That’s not a reason to push yourself -’</p><p>‘My <em> life </em> is pushing myself,’ Rufus counters. ‘I’m being held together with painkillers and fucking <em> willpower</em>, Tseng. If this clarity is here, I’m making the most of it.’</p><p>Tseng looks at Rufus, hair in his eyes, face pouting in concentration. It reminds him of Rufus at eighteen, already planning sabotage with the same determination. Now, his goals are nobler, and his face is older. Tseng loves him, all the same.</p><p>‘It can take my body,’ Rufus says, with a seething malice that barely breaks the skin. ‘Not my mind.’</p><p>Perhaps there is power in sickness, after all. There is power as long as he <em> tries.</em></p><p>—</p><p>Tseng is right, as always.</p><p>Rufus is in the bathroom when he falls, cut at the knees like a faulty marionette. He hits his chin against the sink of marble, shrieks in frustration that he barely feels anything at all. His shins should be burning; instead they spasm beneath his trousers, feeling divorced from his pattern of nerves. </p><p>He shuffles as best he can to support himself, heaves an arm to the sink and clings, wills his legs into submission. He falls again, leans his head back against the bathroom cabinet, sighs his bones out. This is not his body. This is not his life.</p><p>After what feels like hours, Tseng finds him, glassy-eyed and bleeding.</p><p>‘Rufus,’ he breathes, moves next to him. ‘Let me help -’</p><p>As Tseng hoists him up with ease, Rufus’ eyes awaken, embarrassed and venomous. </p><p>‘I don’t need your help,’ Rufus snarls, as Tseng places a firm arm under his legs, cradles him like a child. ‘I can do it.’</p><p>Tseng stares straight ahead, carries Rufus wordlessly to his bed, pretends he does not feel Rufus shaking in his arms. Tseng places him down and pulls a sheet over Rufus, tries his best to be delicate. Rufus winces, fists his hands in the sheets and glares holes into the ceiling.</p><p>‘I think you should leave,’ says Rufus, his voice icy.</p><p>Tseng sighs, takes his jacket off and rolls into bed next to him.</p><p>‘I mean it, Tseng. I won’t have you see me like <em> this.</em>’</p><p>Tseng stares at him with a barely-concealed frustration.</p><p>‘Do you honestly think that after <em> everything </em> – exile, your father, Midgar – that I would decide that <em> this </em> was the final straw? That <em> this </em> is the reason I leave you?’ Tseng’s deep brown eyes look wounded. ‘You’re proud, Rufus, but you’re not stupid.’</p><p>Rufus wants to flinch at the sincerity in his voice. Tseng is a man of action, fluid gestures, silent touches in the right places. Never before has he heard Tseng so incensed and honest.</p><p>‘But I -’ Rufus gestures limply at his aching body. ‘Gods, Tseng, look at me.’</p><p>‘It’s nice to know illness hasn’t taken your vanity,’ Tseng says. ‘Forgive me, sir, but you’ve always been foolish. I don’t stay because you’re beautiful. I stay because I’m yours.’</p><p>Rufus looks at him, feels as if his lungs are filled with water.</p><p>‘Looks and riches are conditional,’ Tseng continues calmly. ‘My loyalty to you is not.’</p><p>‘What did I ever do to deserve you,’ Rufus says, tries to make it humorous; instead it comes out cracked and brittle. ‘Tseng -’</p><p>Tseng reaches for Rufus’ hand, kisses his fingertips and lowers his lips again to kiss his palm dark with stigma.</p><p>‘Don’t -’</p><p>‘I <em> want </em>to,’ Tseng says, lowers his lips to kiss blackened skin. ‘I learned stubbornness from you.’</p><p>Rufus laughs a mangled laugh, does not protest. He turns his head, shoves his unbandaged eye into the pillow so Tseng does not see him cry.</p><p>Tseng stays, eventually falls asleep in Rufus’ bed, clinging bedsheets round the two of them like a shroud. It’s hot and Rufus sweats through his clothes, but he doesn’t let go, allows Tseng to wrap him up safely. Rufus can’t remember the last time he saw Tseng sleeping, realises how he has missed it; his eyes, usually tense or aflame, are closed, his jaw and shoulders relaxed. It is Tseng at his most beautiful. </p><p>Rufus clamps his eyes shut, thinks again of the things he will miss.</p><p>—</p><p>He visits Midgar again, with the others this time.</p><p>It’s a visit the same as many, discussions of reparations and security and cost. Rufus picks out structures on the horizon, mentally repurposing the material to new homes in Edge. Together, they look at the ruins of Midgar, all skeleton frames and heaving rubble. Smoke still rises from the reactors. They are alive, for lack of a better word. </p><p>Reno places his head gently on Rude’s shoulder; it’s the closest to delicate Rufus has ever seen them. Elena looks at the ground, tucks hair behind her ear, tired and introspective.</p><p>Tseng holds Rufus at the waist, supported by his cane. He looks smaller and frailer, but his eyes still shine, studying the city like an architect surveying an empty plot of land.</p><p>‘What’s the word, boss?’</p><p>Rufus turns to them, eyes ablaze with stern resolve. <em> His </em> Turks, even now. His community in the midst of a world on fire.</p><p>For once, the Lifestream is silent, and Rufus smiles.</p><p>‘We should try the Northern Cave,’ he says.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>the turks headcanon jumped out, lol, particularly elena's. i have a big elena character fic planned if that's your kind of thing</p><p>anyway i live in turk hell now!!! thanks for reading</p></blockquote></div></div>
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